Once you’ve got these ready, just follow these steps to make your own bootable USB: To create a bootable USB using Rufus, all you need is: Rufus is one of several programs that allow you to create an “ISO image” on a USB stick. This can be useful if you ever need to recover, repair or install an operating system on your computer.
By running the bootable USB however, you can boot up your computer using the USB’s ISO image instead. Normally, whenever you start up your computer, it boots from the operating system stored on your internal hard drive. This could, for example, be a Windows installation CD.
A “ bootable USB” is a regular USB storage device (like a USB stick or external hard drive) that has an “ISO image” of an operating system saved on it.Īn ISO image is an archive file that contains all the information found on an optical disc, such as a CD or DVD.